If you’ve ever watched old kids movies from the ’70s, such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or The Shaggy Dog, you’ll remember real-life actors and effects that served the story instead of CG characters and scenes. Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium is one of those movies, and, contrary to initial impressions, it is no Charlie and the Chocolate Factory clone.
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
If you’ve ever watched old kids movies from the ’70s, such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or The Shaggy Dog, you’ll remember real-life actors and effects that served the story instead of CG characters and scenes. Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium is one of those movies, and, contrary to initial impressions, it is no Charlie and the Chocolate Factory clone.
Magorium (Dustin Hoffman), the proprietor of the Wonder Emporium toy store, is 243 years old and still a kid at heart. He has invented toys from as far back as Napoleon’s time, and has finally decided that his time on Earth is over. As a surprise, he is planning on giving the shop to store-manager and would-be composer Molly Mahoney (Natalie Portman).
But this is the 21st century, and there’s red tape to be dealt with. Magorium has never balanced his receipts or done any paperwork, so he hires an accountant (Jason Bateman) to appraise the value of the store. Magorium calls him “mutant” due to his childish misunderstanding of the term accountant. The store’s socially challenged child, Eric Applebaum (Zach Mills), tries to make friends with the all-work-no-play new arrival.
At this point you may be asking yourself, “Why would I ever see this movie?” The answer is that it is written and directed by Zach Helm, who penned last year’s Stranger Than Fiction, the tale of a risk-adverse IRS agent (Will Farrell) who ends up as a character in a famous author’s newest book. But behind the children’s movie exterior of Magorium wait serious adult themes, particularly in Portman’s character, Molly Mahoney.
Mahoney is only 23 and, like many adults, she is already so wracked by insecurity that she has all but given up on her dreams. Every night she tries to finish her first symphony, and all day long her fingers play out the melody on an imaginary piano. She stops one day, however, and is unable to move forward on the piece. She also feels stuck at her job at the Wonder Emporium, where she has worked since the beginning of college.
She reacts to Magorium’s pronouncement that he is “going away,” as any rational human being would. She takes him to a doctor to see if there is anything wrong with him, and when he receives a clean bill of health, she thinks he must be giving up and tries to remind him of all the things in life worth living for. But he is having none of it. He’s lived long enough, and now it’s just his time to go.
And go he does, leaving Mahoney with a store grieving his death (remember it’s a kids movie). She gives up hope and decides to sell the store. By the time Applebaum, the accountant, finds her, she is playing requests at a hotel lounge piano and has completely given up on her dreams to accept “reality.”
The movie envelops your typical clichés about believing in yourself. What redeems the film is that it shows that life is exactly as you make it. If you think life sucks, it does; if you think it’s beautiful and full of wonder, you can find plenty of things that will show you that too. In a way, the film is an It’s a Wonderful Life for kids.
As this peculiar kids movie shows, we ultimately create our own reality. Global warming, terrorism and our own insecurities will gladly keep us perpetually locked up in fear. But it is not too late to take charge of our own destiny and do our best to make our own life and others’ lives happier. After all, that’s what it means to be an adult.
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium opens today in theaters across Portland.
